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What are the different types of websites?

A website is your digital address where online visitors can find out about your brand and provision products or services (if available.) In an increasingly digitised world where customers look for convenience, cost savings, and quality, not necessarily in that order, your website needs to incorporate elements to increase visibility. However, before designing a website, you should set out its objectives, utility, and target users. Remember, in the online platform you are not alone as competition gets stiffer with each passing day. So, staying ahead of the competition curve would entail designing a website that is attractive, functionally rich, qualitatively superior, and secure. Web design has become a professional job requiring thorough planning, designing, coding, testing, and delivery. This is where an experienced web design company may be engaged to ensure the above mentioned deliverable’s are addressed.

In order to design a website representing your brand, you must think about the type of website your business should possess. The process can begin with answering a few questions such as –

Who are my target customers?

Why should my target customers visit the website?

What queries or problems will it solve?

What attributes shall make my website different or be competitive?

The answers to the above questions shall determine the type of website you should design for your business. Let us discuss the different types of websites that are part and parcel of the online medium.

Types of websites

To begin with, each and every website is primarily classified into two types – static and dynamic. These websites are differentiated on the basis of their frequency of content update.

Static: In this type of website, the content remains unchanged for a long time and there is no interaction with the user as well. These are mostly informational sites providing information about an organisation or even an individual/group.

Dynamic: Here, the content gets regularly updated, either by the site owner(s) or users. These websites can be customised using filters, tags etc to let is appear in a certain way to the users. For example, in an eCommerce website, different users can view different screens depending on factors such as search history, location etc.

Classification based on functionality and objectives

Websites are classified as per their core functions and problems they solve for the users. The types of such websites are mentioned below.

Corporate websites: These websites provide information about comapnies, their philosophy, vision, products, services, workflow, portfolios, testimonials, or reviews to their target users and clients. The websites may act as the exclusive medium of communication for the company representatives. The websites may contain available vacancies, events, activities, or future plans of businesses. To build such a website with all the attributes, you may use in-house resources or engage the website development services in Mandurah.

Ecommerce websites: These websites provide an online platform for the users to buy products or services and comprise two types; one representing the existing brick and mortar stores and the other existing exclusively online. These websites may contain sections such as product/service pages, filters, add to cart, payment gateways, checkout, chatbots and reviews. For example, Amazon, Walmart, Alibaba etc.

Educational websites: These websites provide an exclusive online medium for users to access course materials, libraries, class schedules, discussion boards, and take examinations. These websites are of great help to the working professionals as they can continue learning even without attending classes in schools/colleges/universities.

Personal websites: These websites represent individuals and may have content in the form of blogs/articles that promote an individual’s enterprise, hobby etc.

Video streaming websites: These websites provide video content – either comprising TV series, sports events, or movies. These act as sources of entertainment for the users.

Social websites: Arguably one of the most popular types of websites, these help users to communicate with each other, post content (text, images, videos), share opinions or thoughts. Also known as social media websites, these are often leveraged by digital marketing agencies to promote specific brands, products or services. For example, Facebook, LinkedIn, Instagram etc.

Conclusion

Going online has become imperative for organisations to stay competitive and reach their target users. However, designing a website, either in-house or by engaging an experienced website design company, should depend on a slew of factors comprising the objectives, utility, and target users.